Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has confirmed that Citadel Securities, Virtu Financial, JP Morgan and Bank of America are the first four authorised participants (APs) actively using its ecosystem for exchange traded funds (ETFs).
Speaking to analysts on the institution’s fourth quarter earnings call, ICE chief executive Jeff Sprecher said the onboarding of the four APs signals an important stage for the development of the ICE ETF Hub, as the exchange looks to build liquidity.
“Our first phase is focused on building the network, by adding authorised participants known and the industry as APs, as well as additional ETF sponsors,” Sprecher said. “We now have four APs that are actively using the platform, made up of JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citadel [Securities] and Virtu, marking an important step towards building liquidity in primary trading, which is otherwise known as the ETF create redeem process.”
He added that the majority of BlackRock’s fixed income ETF assets under management – more than 70 fixed income ETFs – are also utilising the platform, which aims to provide market participants with a more standardised and automated process for assembling, and placing creation and redemption baskets.
Earlier this week, ICE confirmed that it has added a FIX API to allow Aps to connect to the ETF Hub to manage create and redeem orders in a more automated fashion. It also rolled out multi-order functionality to allow Aps to submit multiple transactions as one order.
The ecosystem currently supports US-listed domestic equity and fixed income ETFs, but ICE plans to expand this later in the year to support US-listed international equity ETFs. It will also provide connectivity to ICE Bonds trading protocols, including click-to-trade and request for quote.